Hard at work making new games

I picked up right where I left off before in my beginning game programming book.  I just modified the book’s Frogger-type game with a chicken instead of a frog.  Keith made some mean chicken and car bitmap graphics for it.  I think it looks great.

I’m working on learning game programming like a job.  But I decided what I really want to do with this hobby is to make video games as art.  This article by Jason Rohrer of Passages and Between, pretty much sums up how I’ve been feeling about games and what I want to do with them.  

Roger Ebert has a quote which plays a big role in that article.  Ebert keeps on popping up in a lot of things I’ve been reading about lately – I’m reading his Great Movies book; his blog, which has some great writing (which I found looking for info on Synecdoche, NY); and he also figured prominently in an article about Sita Sings the Blues, which I read and discussed at length with my friends.   I used to think he was just a big blowhard, but I’ve changed my mind.  The dude is really smart and has some very thought-provoking things to say – like comparing Synecdoche, NY to Ulysses or that everyone should have a rice cooker.

Wii!

Santa brought a Wii to our house this Christmas.  I love it even more than I had hoped.  It so smartly uses controllers, and every game I have played has been so intuitively easy to use and engaging.  My favorite games so far are Wii Sports Bowling, Boom Blox, and Pinball Hall of Fame: the Williams Collection.  I also really like LostWinds and World of Goo.

Work took up all of my programming time for the past couple of months, but I am about to start back into my game programming book.  The Wii has given me even more inspiration.